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Two new, still unknown bands and one „long-established” – that´s an offer at the Virgin Oil club in Helsinki that evening. However, soon it is revealed that all of the bands are somehow tied together in one way or another – a real “family” evening, so to say.

Crib45Out of the „crib45“ and onto the stage of the Virgin Oil club. What better reason to do so than celebrating the release of the new record “Metamorphosis”. This time without video installations, the newly-crowned STALKER Fresh Act of the merry month of May came up with all together three guitars which gave the sound a quite organic, multi-layered feel making it hard to label. Several guest musicians showed off their skills on “Metamorphosis” amongst others a certain Lars Eikind of Before The Dawn fame and because the guys were anyway on-site, it was no surprise that Lars joined the band with "The Ghosts Among Me".
One thing I noticed was that all musicians, except for the drummer, lined up in one row and so you couldn´t point out a single FRONTman. That´s great because this way the music becomes the center of attention. And that´s what´s most important! Keep an eye on those guys!
More photos in the photo-gallery, see link above!

Black Sun AeonShortly afterwards another Before The Dawn musician took action musically, because with Black Sun Aeon one of the many (side) projects of whizz-kid Tuomas Saukkonen entered the stage to introduce the band’s new album “Darkness Walks Beside Me”. The live line-up makes you look twice, because besides drums which are worked by the aforementioned gentleman, there are two guitars and nothing else, no bass, no keyboard, no flute or anything – “missing” instrumentation is simply played from tape. Nevertheless a real soundstorm is blown towards the audience, carried by Mynni Luukkainen´s (Sotajumala) thundering growls and Mikko Heikkilä´s (Sinamore) exquisite gloomy clean vocals which make Mr. Saukkonens vocal contributions pale in comparison. Mighty rumble in the jungle!
More photos in the photo-gallery, see link above!

Before The DawnWhen finally Before The Dawn enter the stage at a rather late hour, the most exciting part of the evening had already passed. What made it even more difficult was the sound, which was beyond good and evil for the first half of the set - one couldn´t differentiate between guitars, vocals or anything, everything just boiled to one single sound mash and was simply gone without leaving a mark. Later one could then recognize some songs, amongst others "Exile", “Monsters” and the inevitable “Dead Song”; "My Room" and "Unbreakable" as encores. For me personally only a standard performance without real standout moments.
More photos in the photo-gallery, see link above!

And so you make your way home, knowing that at home you really have to check out two new albums, Crib45’s “Metamorphosis” and Black Sun Aeon’s “Darkness Walks Beside Me”.